Black country, new road
Nashville hitmaker Alice Randall on recovering the “erased histories” of country music
ALICE Randall has some very strict rules for what makes a country song. “Life is hard, that’s the big one,” says the songwriter, who has been penning hits for more than 40 years. “God is real. The road and family are significant compensations for hardship, and the past is better than the present.” That last one requires a caveat: “Of course, for many white country fans, the past is a lost mythological Dixie. For many black country fans, the past is a lost Africa.”
Randall explores the genre’s black foundations and her own experiences with the music in her new book My Black Country. It’s accompanied by a tribute album of the same title, featuring the likes of Rhiannon Giddens, Sunny War, Allison Russell, Rissi Palmer and others covering her songs. Both the book and the album argue that country music “requires significant Celtic and African strains”.
This point is crucial for a black songwriter who found herself brushed to the margins of Nashville, despite penning material for Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell and Reba Mcentire. In 1994, she became the first black woman to write a No 1 country hit – “XXX’S And OOO’S (An American Girl)”, recorded by Trisha Yearwood. “Alice is a beautifully observational writer,” says Giddens. “She’s able to tap into things in a way that really speaks to people. She understands that country music is about reaching into the past and bringing things forward. Black people have been making country music for a long time, and Alice is connecting that to what we’re doing now.”
Despite her success on the country charts, Randall began to feel like her songs didn’t truly represent her perspective and didn’t fulfill her intentions – that some essential aspect of her identity had been stripped away. This feeling inspired her to write My Black Country, which extols the contributions of Lil Hardin, Charley Pride and harmonica virtuoso Deford Bailey. “Part of the work of this book is recovering those erased histories. And what I’ve tried to do for them, these women on the album have done for me.”
Giddens sings “The Ballad Of Sally Anne”, which recounts a story of true love thwarted by racial violence. The first recording was by renowned fiddler Mark O’connor, which Randall describes as “an extraordinary version with extraordinary vocals. But it added distance to the reality of the song. It became a song about a white observer noting the drama that’s occurring. Perhaps it’s even one of the people at the lynching.”
Working with producer Ebonie Smith, Giddens devised a new version that conveys the full horror of the incident. “I knew I needed to go in a different direction with my version,” says Giddens. “I took it into a minor key and changed a lot about the melody, which is what folk musicians do.” Randall was moved to tears when she first heard it: “Rhiannon centres the song in Sally
Anne’s love for Johnny rather than in the murder or in her victimisation. That’s another thing about country music: it moves a lot of trauma to transcendence.”
For Randall, My Black Country feels like the culmination of her long career in Nashville, with both the book and the album securing her own place in the history of country music. “These artists have lifted up my legacy,” she says. “They have reframed it and brought me into a Juneteenth moment: good news at long last.”
My Black Country is published by Atria/black Privilege on May 9; the accompanying tribute album is out on April 12 via Oh Boy Records
“Alice is able to tap into things in a way that really speaks to people” RHIANNON GIDDENS